
Book 



t 



/ 



313 

which began in September. The deluge, there« 
fore, took place about the beginning of November ; 
when, if the axis of the earth made the same angle 
with the ecliptick as it does at present, the frost 
must have been sufficient to produce the effect be- 
fore npticedc 



Letter from Br. Samuel L. Mitchill, of New* 
york, to Samuel M. Burn side, Esq. Corres* 
ponding Secretary of the American Antiquarian 
Society. 

Newyork, January 13, 1817. 

Dear Sir, 

IT was only since I became a member of 
the American Antiquarian Society, that I began to 
investigate, in earnest, the history of the people who 
inhabited America, before the arrival of our fore- 
fathers. 

My opportunities while I was a Senator in Con- 
gress, were very favourable to an acquaintance with 
the native tribes. By the decision of the Senate, I 
was for several years a sort of permanent chairman 
of the committee on Indian Affairs. I soon became 
convinced, that the opinions of the European histo- 
rians and naturalists were so full of hypothesis an$ 
errour that they ought to be discarded. My faith 
in the transatlantick doctrines began to be shaken in 
1805, when my intercourse with the Qsages and 
pherokees, led me to entertain of them very cjhTer* 
49 



314 

ent opinions from those I had derived from the* 
books I had read. 

Specimens of their poetry may be seen in paper 
No. I. hereunto annexed. 

The publication to which you refer in your let- 
ter of the first instant, is that which appeared in the 
Analectic Magazine for September, 1815. This 
was a letter really addressed to you, as a manifesta- 
tion of my respect ; and was written immediately 
after the examination of a mummy from Kentucky, 
infinitely more interesting to an American than the 
mummies of Egypt. I refer you to this, as pub- 
lished in the before mentioned literary journal, and 
beg you to consider it as paper No. II. 

The extract from volume eighteen, of the 
Medical Repository, herewith forwarded, with a 
description of the mummy and its wrappers, may 
be considered as paper No. III. in this series. 

My letters to Dewitt Clinton, LL.D. is the next 
of these pieces. Though it has had a great run in 
the periodical publications, I have not a copy at 
hand. Be good enough to mark it as No. IV. in 
the collection. 

Certain strictures having been published relative 
to the doctrines and opinions advanced, the reply 
to them by a student of Natural History, in An- 
drews's Chillicothe Recorder, is offered to you as 
paper No. V. 

Lastly, the part of the introductory lecture which 
I delivered at Newyork, on opening my present 
annual course of Natural History, is herewith for- 
warded to you as paper No. VI. 



315 

You will oblige me if you will consider all these 
pieces as respectfully offered to the American An- 
tiquarian Society, and as worthy of being recorded 
in its archives. And it would gratify me more to 
see them preserved in their present form, than to 
new model and digest them into a single memoir. 
Now they are originals, shewing the progress of 
my mind in coming to the great conclusion, that 
the three races of Malays, Tartars, and Scandinavi- 
ans, contribute to make up the American population, 

Permit me to renew the assurance of my high 
and particular consideration. 

Samuel L. Mitchill. 

No. I. 

Specimen of the Poetry and Singing of the 

OSAGES, 

The following was sung in the Osage tongue, 
at Dr. MitchiU's, in Washington ; translated into 
French by Mr. Choteau, the interpreter ; and ren- 
dered into English immediately, January 7, 1806. 

I. Subject of the first, friendship ; their jour- 
ney to Washington, to have an interview with the 
President of the United States, and their satisfac- 
tion on meeting their Great Father. 

1. 

My comrades brave, and friends of note. 
You hither came from lands remote, 
To see your grand exalted Sire, 
And his sagacious words admire. 

2. 

• 4 The Master of your Life and Breath"* 
Averted accidents and death ; 

* The Great Spirit, or Supreme Being-, is called by several savage 
tribes, « The Master of Breath, or the Master of Life." 



m 

That you might suck a sightbeh6\fy 
In spite of hunger, foes and cold. 

3. 

Ye Red Men ! since ye here have been, 
1four Great White Father ye have seen, 
Who cheer' d his children with his voice, 
And made their heating hearts rejoice. 

4. 

Thou Chief Osage ! fear not to come, 
And leave awhile thy sylvan home ; 
The path we pass'd is clear and free, 
And Wide and smoother grows for thee. 

5. 

Whene'er to march thou feel'st inclin'd, 
Well form a lengthening file behind ; 
And dauntless from our forests walk, 
To hear our Great White Father's Talk. 

II. Subject of the second, War, Wanapasna P 
the chief of the expedition, encourages his asso- 
ciates to despise death, and be daring and valiant 
in arms. 

1. 

Say warriours, why, when arms are sungv 
And dwell on every native tongue, 

Do thoughts of Death intrude ? 
Why weep the common lot of all ? 
Why think that you yourselves may fall 

Pursuing or pursued ? 

2. 

Doubt not your Wanapasha's* care, 
To lead you forth, and shew you where 

The enemy's conceal'd ; 
His single arm shall make th' attack^ 
And drive the sly invaders back, 

Or stretch them on the field. 

*This mail died suddenly at Washington, a few nights after having 
sung this song to the translator. * 



si? 



3. 

Proceeding with embodied force, 
o nations can withstand our course, 

Or check our bold career ; 
Tho' if they knew my warlike Fame 5 
The terrors of my form and name, 

They 'd quake, or die with fear. 

To these specimens of Osage poetry, I subjoin 
two Cherokee songs of friendship. These consist 
of but one sentence each, with a chorus. Nothing 
of greater length seems to exist among them. They 
repeat the song and chorus until they are tired.— 
The words of both were written for me, by Mr. 
Hicks, a "Cherokee of the half blood, with his own 
hand, both original and version, on the twenty first 
of December, 1805, in the presence of colonel Ben- 
jamin Hawkins, colonel R. J. Meigs, general Dan- 
iel Smith, of Tennessee, general Stephen 1R. Brad- 
ley, of Vermont, and Double Head, the famous 
warriour. 

Neither among the Osages nor the Cherokees, 
could there be found a single poetical or musical 
sentiment, founded on the tender passion between 
the sexes. Though often asked, they produced no 
jsongs of love. 

Song the first. 
Can, nal, li, eh, ne-was-tu. 
A friend you, resemble. 
! '€horus. Yai, ne, noo, way. E,noo,way,Ti^ 

Song the second. 
Ti, nai, tau, na, cla, ne-was-tu. 
Brothers I think we are. 
Chonzs. Yai, DSj boOj way* 3E,noo 5 way,h|, 



318 



No. II. 

A Letter from Dr. Mitchill, of Newyork, to 
Samuel M. Burnside, Esq. Secretary of the 
American Antiquarian Society, on North Ameri- 
can Antiquities. 

August 24th, 1815. 

Dear Sir, 

I offer you some observations on a curious 
piece of American antiquity, now in Newyork. It 
is a human body,* found in one of the lime stone 
caverns of Kentucky. It is a perfect exsiccation ; 
all the fluids are dried up. The skin, bones, and 
other firm parts are in a state of entire preservation. 
I think it enough to have puzzled Bryant and all 
the Archaeologists, 

In exploring a calcareous chamber in the neigh- 
bourhood of Glasgow, for saltpetre, several human 
bodies were found enwrapped carefully in skins and 
cloths. They were inhumed below the floor of the 
cave ; inhumed, and not lodged in catacombs. 

These recesses, though under ground, are yet 
dry enough to attract and retain the nitrick acid. It 
combines with lime and potash ; and probably the 
earthy matter of these excavations contains a good 
proportion of calcareous carbonate. Amidst these 
drying and antiseptick ingredients, it may be con- 
ceived that putrefaction would be stayed, and the 
solids preserved from decay. 

The outer envelope of the body is a deer skin, 
probably dried in the usual way, and perhaps soft- 

* A Mummy of this kind, of a person of mature age, discovered in 
Kentucky, is now in the Cabinet of the American Antiquarian Society, 

It is a female. 



319 



ened before its application, by rubbing. The next 
covering is a deer skin, whose hair had been cut 
away by a sharp instrument, resembling a hatter's 
knife. The remnant of the hair, and the gashes in 
the skin, nearly resemble a sheared pelt of beaver. 
The next wrapper is of cloth, made of twine doub- 
led and twisted. But the thread does not appear to 
have been formed by the wheel, nor the web by the 
loom. The warp .and filling seem to have been 
crossed and knotted by an operation like that of the 
fabricks of the northwest coast, and of the Sand- 
wich islands. Such a botanist as the lamented 
Muhlenburgh, could determine the plant which fur- 
nished the fibrous material* 

The innermost tegument is a mantle of cloth 
like the preceding ; but furnished with large brown 
feathers, arranged and fastened with great art, so as 
to be capable of guarding the living wearer from 
wet and cold. The plumage is distinct and entire, 
and the whole bears a near similitude to the feathery 
cloaks now worn by the nations of the northwestern 
coast of America. A Wilson might tell from what 
bird they were derived. 

The body is in a squatting posture, with the right 
arm reclining forward, and its hand encircling the 
right leg. The left arm hangs down, with its hand 
inclined partly under the seat. The individual, who 
was a male, did not probably exceed the age of four- 
teen, at his death. There is a deep and extensive 
fracture of the skull, near the occiput, which proba- 
bly killed him. The skin has sustained little injury ; 
it is of a dusky colour, but the natural hue cannot be 
decided with exactness, from its present appearance. 
The scalp, with small exceptions, is covered with sor- 



320 



rel or foxy hair. The teeth are white and sound. 
The hands and feet, in their shrivelled state, are slen- 
der and delicate. All this is worthy the investiga- 
tion of our acute and perspicacious colleague, Dr. 
Holmes. 

There is nothing bituminous or aromatick in or 
about the body, like the Egyptian mummies, nor 
are there bandages around any part. Except the 
several wrappers, the body is totally naked. There 
is no sign of a suture or incision about the belly ; 
whence it seems that the viscera were not removed* 

It may now be expected that I should offer some 
opinion, as to the antiquity and race of this singular 
exsiccation. 

First, then, I am satisfied that it does n.ot belong 
to that class of white men of which we are mem- 
bers. 

2dly. Nor do I believe that it ought to be re- 
ferred to the bands of Spanish adventurers, who, be- 
tween the years 1500 and 1600, rambled up the 
Missisippi, and along its tributary streams. But 
on this head I should like to know the opinion of 
my learned and sagacious friend, Noah Webster, 

3dly. I am equally obliged to reject the opinion 
that it belonged to any of the tribes of aborigines^ 
now or lately inhabiting Kentucky. 

4thly. The mantle of feathered work, and the 
mantle of twisted threads, so nearly resemble the 
fabricks of the indigenes of Wakash and the Pa- 
cifick islands, that I refer this individual to that 
era of time, and that generation of men, which pre- 
ceded the Indians of the Green River, and of the 
place where these reiicks were found. This con* 



321 



elusion is strengthened by the consideration that 
such manufactures are not prepared by the actual 
and resident red men of the present day. If the 
Abbe Clavigero had had this case before him, he 
would have thought of the people who constructed 
those ancient forts and mounds, whose exact histo- 
ry no man living can give. But I forbear to en- 
large ; my intention being merely to manifest my 
respect to the Society for having enrolled me among 
its members, and to invite the attention of its An- 
tiquarians to further inquiry on a subject of such 
curiosity. 

With respect, I remain yours, 

Samuel L. Mitchill. 

No. III. 

The Original Inhabitants of America consisted of 
the same Races with the Malays of Australasia, 
and the Tartars of the North. — Med. Repos. 
Vol. 18, p. 187. 
The information we derived from Messrs. Cas- 
sedy and M iller, of Tennessee, relative to the hu- 
man bodies found in a copperas cave, near the Cany 
Branch of the Cumberland River, was very curious. 
(Medical Repository, vol. xv. p. 147.) Pieces of 
the cloths which inwrapped them are now preserv- 
ed in Mr. Scudder's museum ; and an exsiccated 
foot is also there. One piece of the fabrick is plain, 
and the other decorated with feathers. 

Since that time other discoveries have been 
made. Thomas B. Monroe, Esq. during the year 
1814, sent to Newyork an entire body, found in a 
41 



322 



salipetrous cave, in the neighbourhood of Glasgow'^ 
in Kentucky. This was in the state of a dried 
preparation, in a squatting posture, with the right 
hand encircling the knee ; it was wrapped in deer 
skins and artificial cloths. The latter are of two 
kinds — plain, and decorated with feathers,, These 
pieces of antiquity were described in a letter writ- 
ten by Dr. Mitchill to Mr. Burnside, Secretary to 
the American Antiquarian Society, and recorded in 
the Analectick Magazine, for September, 1815. — 
Through the politeness of Hickson C. Field, Esq. 
we have been permitted to take a drawing of this 
relick of a former people. The representations, 
both of the body and of the cloths infolding it, were 
executed by that distinguished naturalist, C. S, 
Rafinesque, Esq. 

The fabricks accompanying the Kentucky bod* 
ies resembled very nearly those which encircled the 
mummies of Tennessee. On comparing the two 
sets of samples, they were ascertained to be as 
much alike as two pieces of dimity or diaper from 
different manufactories. 

Other i\ntiquities of the same class have come 
to light. Mr- Gratz, of Philadelphia, the proprie- 
tor of the vast cavern figured and described in the 
Medical Repository, vol. xvii. pp. 391 — 393, has, 
very obligingly, sent to Dr. Mitchill other speci- 
mens of cloths, things made of those cloths, and 
raw materials, dug out of that unparalleled natural 
excavation. He forwarded, with the samples, a 
map of the cave, substantially like that which we 
had received before from Mr. Bogert ; and con- 
firming every thing therein stated. A parcel of 



323 



these articles, now in Dr. MitchilPs possession^ 
was accompanied with the following note — " There 
will be found in this bundle two mocasons, in the 
same state they were when dug out of the Mam- 
moth Cave, about two hundred yards from its 
mouth. Upon examination, it will be perceived 
that they are fabricated out of different materials ; 
one is supposed to be made of a species of flag, or 
lily, which grows in the southern parts of Ken- 
tucky ; the other, of the bark of some tree, proba- 
bly the pappaw. 

" There are, also, in this packet, a part of what is 
supposed to be a kinniconecke pouch, two meshes 
of a fishing net, and a piece of what we suppose to 
be the raw material, and of which the fishing net, 
the pouch, and one of the mocasons are made. All 
of which were dug out of the Mammoth Cave, nine 
or ten feet under ground ; that is, below the sur- 
face or floor of the cavern. You will find, likewise, 
two Indian beads, discovered in a cave, situated in, 
the vicinity of the Mammoth Cave. 

" We have, also, an Indian bowl, or cup, con- 
taining about a pint, cut out of wood, found also in 
the cave ; and lately, there has been dug out of it the 
skeleton of a human body, enveloped in a matting 
similar to that of the kinniconecke pouch." 

This matting is substantially like those of the 
plain fabrick, from the copperas cave of Tennessee, 
and the saltpetrous cavern, near Glasgow. 

And, what is highly remarkable, and worthy the 
attention of every Antiquarian, is, that they all have 
a perfect resemblance to the fabricks of the Sand- 
wich, the Caroline, and the Fegee islands. 



324 



We know the similitude of the manufactured ar- 
ticles from the following circumstance : — After the 
termination of the war in the island of Toconroba, 
wherein certain citizens of the United States were 
engaged as principals or allies, many articles of Fe- 
gee manufacture were brought to Newyork by the 
victors. Some of them agree almost exactly with 
the fabricks discovered in Kentucky and Tennes- 
see. They bear, on strict comparison, the marks 
of a similar state of the arts, and point strongly to a 
sameness of origin in the respective people that pre- 
pared them. Notwithstanding the distance of their 
several residences, at the present time, it is impos- 
sible not to look back to the common ancestry of 
the Malays who formerly possessed the country be- 
tween the Alleghany mountains and the river Mis- 
sisippi, and those who now inhabit the islands of 
the Pacifick ocean. 

All these considerations lead to the belief, that 
colonies of Australasians, or Malays, landed in 
North America, and penetrated across the conti- 
nent, to the region lying between the Great Lakes 
and the Gulph of Mexico. There they resided, 
and constructed the fortifications, mounds, and 
other ancient structures, which every person who 
beholds them admires. 

What has become of them ? They have proba- 
bly been overcome by the more warlike and fero- 
cious hordes that entered our hemisphere from the 
northeast of Asia. These Tartars of the higher 
latitudes have issued from the great hive of nations, 
and desolated, in the course of their migrations, the 
southern tribes of America, as they have done to 



325 

those of Asia and Europe, The greater part of the 
present American natives are of the Tartar stock, 
the descendants of the hardy warriours who de- 
stroyed the weaker Malays that preceded them. — 
r An individual of their exterminated race now and 
then rises from the tomb* 

No. IV. 

The Original Inhabitants of America shown to be of 
the same family and lineage with those of Asia, 
by a process of reasoning not hitherto advanced. 
By Samuel L. Mitchill, M. D. Professor of 
Natural History in the University of Newyork ; 
in a communication to De Witt Clinton, 
Esq * President of the Newyork Philosophical 
Society r , dated 

Newyork, March 31, 1816. 

The view which I took of the varieties of the 
human race, in my course of Natural History, de- 
livered in the University of Newyork, differs in so 
many particulars from that entertained by the great 
zoologists of the age, that I give you for informa- 
tion, and without delay, a summary of my yester- 
day's lecture to my class. 

I denied, in the beginning, the assertion that the 
American aborigines were of a peculiar constitu- 
tion, of a race sui generis, and of a copper colour. 
All these notions were treated as fanciful and vis- 
ionary. 

The indigenes of the two Americas appear to 
me to be of the same stock and genealogy with the 
inhabitants of the northern and southern Asia. The 
northern tribes were probably more hardy, fero- 



326 



eious, and warlike than those of the south. The 
tribes of the lower latitudes seem to have been 
greater proficients in the arts, particularly of mak- 
ing cloths, clearing the ground, and erecting works^ 
of defence. 

The parallel between the people of America and 
Asia, affords this important conclusion, that on both 
continents, the hordes dwelling in the higher lati- 
tudes have overpowered the more civilized, though 
feebler inhabitants of the countries situated towards 
the equator. As the Tartars have overrun China, 
so the Astecas subdued Mexico. As the Huns 
and Alans desolated Italy, so the Chippewas and 
Iroquoise prostrated the populous settlements on 
both banks of the Ohio. 

The surviving race in these terrible conflicts be- 
tween the different nations of the ancient native 
residents of North America, is evidently that of the 
Tartars. This opinion is founded upon four con- 
siderations. 

I. The similarity of physiognomy and features, 
His excellency M. Genet, late minister plenipoten- 
tiary from France to the United States, is well ac- 
quainted with the faces, hues and figures of our In- 
dians and of the Asiatick Tartars ; and is perfectly 
satisfied of their mutual resemblance. Mons. Ca- 
zeaux, consul of France to Newyork, has drawn 
the same conclusion from a careful examination of 
the native man of North America and Northern 
Asia. 

M. Smibert, who had been employed, as Josiah 
Meigs, Esq. now commissioner of the land office in 
the United States, relates, in executing paintings of 



327 



Tartar visages, for the grand duke of Tuscany, was so 
struck with the similarity of their features to those 
of the Naraganset Indians, that he pronounces them 
members of the same great family of mankind. — 
The anecdote is preserved, with all its circumstan- 
ces, in the fourteenth volume of the Medical Re- 
pository. 

Within a few months I examined over and again 
seven or eight Chinese sailors, who had assisted in 
navigating a ship from Macoa to Newyork. The 
thinness of their beards, the bay complexion, the 
black lank hair* the aspect of the eyes, the contour 
of the face, and in short the general external char- 
acter, induced every person who observed them, 
to remark, how nearly they resembled the Mohe- 
gans and Oneidas of Newyork. 

Sidi Mellimelli, the Tunisian envoy to the United 
States, in 1804, entertained the same opinion, on 
beholding the Cherokees, Osages, and Miamies, 
assembled at the city of Washington, during his 
residence there. Their Tartar physiognomy struck 
him in a moment. 

2. The affinity of their languages. The late 
learned and enterprising Professor Barton, took the 
lead in this curious inquiry. He collected as many 
words as he could from the languages spoken in 
Asia and America, and he concluded, from the nu- 
merous coincidences of sound and signification, that 
there must have been a common origin. 

3. The existence of corresponding customs. I 
mean to state at present that of shaving away the 
hair of the scalp, from the fore part and sides of the 



S28 

head, so that nothing is left but a tuft or lock on the 
crown. 

The custom of smoking the pipe, on solemn oc- 
casions, to the four cardinal points -of the compass, 
to the heavens and to the earth, is reported upon 
the most credible authority, to distinguish equally 
the hordes of the Asiatick Tartars and the bands of 
the American Siaux. 

4. The kindred nature of the Indian dogs of 
America, and the Siberian dogs of Asia. 

The animal that lives with the natives of the two 
continents, as a dog, is very different from the tame 
and familiar creature of the same name iri Europe. 
He is either a different species, or a wide variety of 
the same species. But the identity of the Ameri- 
can and Asiatick curs is evinced by several con- 
siderations. Both are mostly white. They have 
shaggy coats, sharp noses, and erect ears. They 
are voracious, thievish, and to a considerable degree 
indomitable. They steal whenever they can, and 
sometimes turn against their masters. They are 
prone to snarl and grin, and they have a howl in- 
stead of barking. They are employed in both 
hemispheres for labour ; such as carrying burthens, 
drawing sleds over the snow, and the like ; being 
yoked and harnessed for the purpose, like horses. 

This coincidence of our Indian dog with the Ca- 
ms Sibericus, is a very important fact. The dog, 
the companion, the friend, or the slave of man, in all 
his fortunes and migrations, thus reflects grtat light 
upon the history of nations and of their genealogy. 

II. The exterminated race in the savage inter- 
course between the nations of North America in an- 



329 



cient days, appear clearly to have been that of the 
Malays. 

The bodies, and shrouds, and clothing of these 
individuals, have, within a few years, been discover- 
ed in the caverns of saltpetre and copperas within 
the states of Kentucky and Tennesseeo Their entire 
and exsiccated condition, has led intelligent gen- 
tlemen who have seen them, to call them mummies. 
They are some of the most memorable of the An- 
tiquities that North America contains. The race 
or nation to which they belonged is extinct ; but in 
preceding ages, occupied the region situated be- 
tween lakes Ontario and Erie on the north, and the 
gulph of Mexico on the south, and bounded east- 
wardly by the Alleghany mountains, and westward- 
ly by the Missisippi river. 

That they were similar in their origin and char- 
acter to the present inhabitants of the Pacifick 
islands and of Austral Asia, is argued from various 
circumstances,, 

1. The sameness of texture in the plain cloth 
or matting that enwraps the mummies, and that 
which our navigators bring from Wakash, the 
Sandwich islands, and the Fegees. 

2. The close resemblance there is between the 
feathery mantles brought now a days from the isl- 
ands of the South Sea, and those wrappers which 
surround the mummies lately disinterred in the 
western states. The plumes of birds are twisted 
or tied to the treads, with peculiar skill, and turn 
water like the back of a duck. 

3. Meshes of nets, regularly knotted and tied., 
and formed of a strong and even twine, 

42 



330 



4. Mbcasons, or coverings of the feet, manu- 
factured with remarkable ability, from the bark 
or rind of plants, worked into a sort of stout mat- 
ting. 

5. Pieces of antique sculpture, especially of 
human heads and of some other forms, found where 
the exterminated tribes had dwelt, resembling the 
carving at Qtaheite* New Zealand, and other places. 

6. Works of defence, or fortifications, over- 
spreading the fertile tract of country, formerly pos- 
sessed by these people, who may be supposed capa- 
ble of constructing works Of much greater simplici- 
ty than the morais or burial places, and the hippas 
or fighting stages of the Society islands. 

7* As far as observations have gone, a belief 
that the shape of the skull and the angle of the face, 
in the mummies, correspond with those of the living 
Malays. 

I reject, therefore, the doctrine taught by the 
European naturalists, that the man of Western 
America differs in any material point from the man 
of Eastern Asia. Had the Robertsons, the BufFons, 
the Raynals, the De Pauwys, and the other specu- 
lators upon the American character and the vilifiers 
of the American name, procured the requisite in- 
formation concerning the hemisphere situated to 
the west of us, they would have discovered that the 
inhabitants of vast regions of Asia, to the number 
of many millions, were of the same blood and line- 
age with the undervalued and despised population 
of America* The learned Dr. Williamson has dis- 
cussed this point with great ability. 



331 



I forbore to go farther than to ascertain by the 
correspondences already stated, the identity of ori- 
gin and derivation of the American and Asiatick 
natives. I avoided the opportunity which this grand 
conclusion afforded me, of stating, that America 
was the cradle of the human race ; of tracing its 
colonies westward over the Pacifick ocean, and be- 
yond the sea of Kamschafka, to new settlements ; 
of following the emigrants by land and by water, 
until they reached Europe and Africa ; and lastly, 
of following adventurers from the former of these 
sections of the globe, to the plantations and abodes 
which they found occupied in America. I had no 
inclination to oppose the current opinions relative 
to die place of man's creation and dispersion. I 
thought it was scarcely worth the while to inform 
an European, that on coming to America, he had 
left the new world behind him for the purpose of 
visiting the old. It ought, nevertheless, to be re- 
marked, that there are many important advantages- 
derived to our reasoning from the present manner 
of considering the subject. The principles being 
now established, they will be supported by a farther 
induction of facts and occurrences, to an extent and 
an amount that it is impossible, at this moment, 
fairly to estimate. And the conclusions of Jeffer- 
son, Lafon, and others, favourable to the greater an- 
tiquity of American population, will be daily rein- 
forced and confirmed. 

Having thus given the history of these races of 
man, spreading so extensively over the globe, I 
cocsidered the human family under three divi- 
sions. 



332 



First, the Tawny man, comprehending the Tar- 
tars, Malays, Chinese, the American Indians of 
every tribe, Lascars, and other people of the same 
cast and breed. From these seemed to have pro- 
ceeded two remarkable varieties, to wit : 

Secondly, the white man, inhabiting naturally the 
countries in Asia and Europe, situated north of the 
Mediterranean Sea ; and, in the course of his ad- 
ventures, settling all over the world. Among those 
I reckon the Greenlanders and Esquimaux. 

Thirdly, the black man, whose proper residence 
is in the regions south of the Mediterranean, par- 
ticularly toward the interiour of Africa. The peo- 
ple of Papua and Van Dieman's Land, seem to be 
of this class. 

It is generally supposed, and by many able and 
ingenious men too, that external physical causes, 
and the combination of circumstances which they 
call climate, have wrought all these changes in the 
human form. I do not, however, think them capa- 
ble of explaining the differences which exist among 
the nations. There is an internal physical cause of 
the greatest moment, which has scarcely been men- 
tioned. This is the generative influence. If by 
the act of modelling the constitution in the embryo 
and frctus, a predisposition to gout, madness, scrof- 
ula and consumption, may be engendered, we may 
rationally conclude, with the sagacious d'Azara, 
that the procreative power may also shape the fea- 
tures, tinge the skin, and give other peculiarities to 
man. 

Yours truly, 

Samuel L. Mitchill. 



333 



No. V. 

Letter from a Gentleman in Newyork, to the Edi- 
tor of the Chillicofhe Recorder, dated 

Newyork, June 6, 1816. 

Sir, 

I observe in the Weekly Recorder of Chilli- 
cothe, for May 15th, which you were polite enough 
to send to Dr. Mitchill, that you have inserted his 
Disquisition on the Man of America and Asia, 
among the articles of intelligence which occupy 
that valuable paper. During the temporary ab- 
sence from the city, and the actual occupation of 
that gentleman, I do myself the pleasure of writing 
you a few lines in his behalf. 

No doubt, according to my way of thinking, 
ought to be entertained of the similarity of the in- 
habitants of the two great continents. The Ameri- 
cans and Asiaticks are so much alike, that the more 
strictly their resemblances are traced, the more 
clearly will it appear that they are descendants from 
the same stock. 

In addition to the considerations already stated 
In favour of this opinion, may be urged the more 
recent disclosures concerning the quadrupeds which 
Inhabit the respective countries. There is conclu- 
sive evidence, for example, the wild sheep of Lou- 
isiana and California, is the Tartarian animal of the 
same name. Yes, the taye-taye of Northwestern 
America is an animal of the same species with the 
argali of Northeastern Asia. Our mountain ram 
or big horn, is their ovis ammon. 

Some late observations have been made on our 
prairie wolf, tending to prove that he is the chacal, 



334 



or jackall, of the other hemisphere. Should a more, 
strict examination confirm this belief, there will be an- 
other corroborating circumstance. I hope the ques- 
tion will soon be decided, whether the prairie wolf 
is truly the cams aureus of naturalists. His grega- 
rious character, his noisy yelping, his cunning and 
robbing disposition, and his burrowing in tli£ 
ground, all look like it. 

That our continent contains a species of the an- 
telope, seems to be equally well ascertained. It is 
a striking coincidence that the elegant family of the 
gazelles should belong both to Asia and to this 
hemisphere situated to the eastward of it. 

I have a firm persuasion that when the beavers, 
the martins, the ermines, the seals, the bears, the 
deer, and several other animals, shall be properly 
known and considered, their histories and analogies 
will shed a fine light, not only upon their own mi- 
grations, but upon that of man himself. 

To the opinions uttered concerning the greater 
antiquity of our eastern world, (for so it is in rela- 
tion to Asia,) and its more early population, I have 
heard Dr. Mitchill say he attached little weight or 
value. If it could be ascertained that the human 
race was created in America, what practical good 
would result from the discovery. 

He has been heard to declare, some of the ablest 
criticks had exercised their talents so unprofitably 
on this subject, that he had no desire to imitate 
them. 

As to the seat of Eden and the terrestrial para- 
dise, for example, four several speculations have 
been indulged by pious and learned writers, ' 



3^ 

That prodigy of learning and research, Samuel 
Bochart, has described in his Geographia Sacra, 
many places celebrated of old. His friend and edi- 
tor, Stephen Morinus, has published his sentiment 
de Paradiso, accompanied by a map. He locates 
the spot between Arabia and Persia, where the riv- 
ers Tigris and Euphrates meet. They pass through 
the region where the cities Seleucia and Ctesiphon 
stood in a joint channel. After irrigating, in the 
thirty fourth degree of north latitude, the primitive 
garden of .Mesopotamia, they divide again into two 
streams. The easternmost of these is called Gichon, 
and the westernmost Phison, and both empty into 
the Persian Gulph. To the north, a little west- 
wardly, he places the mountain Ararat, or Niphates, 
where the ark of Noah is supposed to have rested, 
on the subsidence of the deluge. 

Augustin Calmet, another colossus of sacred eru- 
dition, has composed literal commentaries on all the 
books of the Old and New Testaments, in more 
than twenty quarto volumes. He interprets the 
Hebrew text, translated to signify that the river Gi- 
hon encompassed the whole land of Ethiopia, to 
mean simply that it winds through the land of Cush. 
After a long and elaborate discussion, Calmet con- 
cludes that the land of Cush is situated somewhere 
north of the sources of the Tigris ; that the Gihon 
is the river Araxes ; that it discharges its waters 
into the Caspian Sea ; and that Eden and Paradise 
existed between the head waters of the Araxes and 
of the Euphrates, in the fortieth degree of latitude, 
and considerably west of the Caspian. 



336 



The Septuagint and St. Jerome consider the land 
of Cush and Ethiopia to be the same. Conse- 
quently the parents of mankind must have been 
first placed in a region watered by the Upper Nile* 

Philo Judaeus, and various others, have r with 
great and ingenious labours, endeavoured to show 
the whole narration of the garden by Moses to be a 
beautiful and instructive allegory. These interpret- 
ers reverently shrink from the supposition that any 
definite portion of earth or soil was intended or un- 
derstood. 

Thus, the wisest and best men vary exceedingly 
In their judgment as to the geographical site of 
man's original abode. After all this, if any person 
should think the spot was in some part of America, 
I see no harm in the conjecture. If he could rec- 
oncile himself to the belief, that from the time the 
"flood bare up the ark/' it " went upon the face of 
the waters'^ during the hundred and fifty days the 
deluge lasted, from such American paradise to 
Mount Ararat, I am sure Dr. Mitchill would not 
envy him the enjoyment* 

It has been observed by a very competent judge ? 
John Mason Goode, Esq. that there is no part of the 
world where there is such scope for original obser- 
vation as our own. He thinks we ought to inquire, 
" From what quarter, or rather, from what different 
quarters, the American continent became peopled f 
At what different periods, new colonies, or migra- 
tions poured forth towards it ? What have been 
their various degrees of civilization ? What their 
knowledge of arts and sciences ? of religious and 
political institutions ? What monuments of their 



337 

V 

respective histories, propensities and talents they 
may have left among them, or behind them, buried 
beneath the ground, rudely carved on rocks, or still 
prominent is architectural ruins ? How one tribe 
has yielded to another, and probably those more 
civilized to those less so ?" These, and a thou- 
sand other inquiries of a similar kind, do indeed 
form a body of investigation peculiar to ourselves ; 
and open a more extensive field for historiography 
than perhaps any country can display to the eye, or 
even to the imagination* 

Captain Locket, the great oriental scholar, has 
enjoyed singular opportunities for Asia tick inqui- 
ries, in the course of his employment as secretary 
and examiner in the college at Fort William, near 
Calcutta. His means of taking comparative esti- 
mates must have been peculiarly favourable, after a 
free and liberal communication, at Paris, with the 
great travellers through New Spain, and the prov- 
inces to the south on both sides of the Cordilleras. 
To find such a gentleman repeating the declaration 
of Baron Humboldt, how he can establish, from 
identity of features, customs and language, the 
Mexicans to be descendants from the ancient Tibe- 
tians, is doubtless very consoling to Dr. Mitchill, 
who, from facts and occurrences within the United 
States, had been led to conclude that tribes of Ma- 
layan or Australasian blood formerly dwelt on lands 
contiguous to the Ohio. 

Now the investigation is begun, let us all look 
into this matter. In the appendix to George Ed- 
wards's second volume of his History of Eirds, 
43 



338 

p. 118, there is a likeness of a wild Asiafick, done 
from the life by the French traveller and painter 
Le Bruyn. This head of a Samoied resembles ex- 
actly the physiognomy and features of the North 
American Indians, and gives a perfect idea of them. 
After examining this print, I am satisfied of the 
near resemblance between the two sorts of faces. — ■ 
Mr. Edwards had himself seen our aboriginal chiefs 
in England ; and, on beholding this portrait of the 
North Asiatick in Le Bruyn's Travels, he found 
them strongly represented by it. And the dresses 
foe received from Hudson's Bay so nearly resembled 
the clothes of the Russian savages, that they might 
almost pass for the same. 

I hope you will give these explanations, in be- 
half of my friend, a place in your gazette, and there- 
by oblige 

A Student of Natural History, 
No. Vl 

Heads 0/ that part of the Introductory Discourse 
delivered November 7, 1816, % Z)r. Mitch ill, 
in the College of Physicians at Newyork, which 
relates to the Migration of Malays, Tartars, and 
Scandinavians, to America* 
A late German writer, Professor Vater, has pub- 
lished, at Leipzig, a book on the population of 
America. It is* in reality, a display of Humboldt's 
opinions on that subject. He lays great stress on 
the tongues spoken by the aborigines, and dwells 
considerably upon the unity pervading the whole 
of them from Ghili to the remotest district of Nortfo 
America — whether of Greenland, Chippewa, Dela- 



539 



ware, Natick, Totouaka, Cora or Mexican. Though 
ever so singular and diversified, nevertheless the 
same peculiarity obtains among them all, which 
cannot be accidental, viz. " the whole sagacity of 
that people, from whom the construction of the 
American languages and the gradual invention of 
their grammatical forms is derived, has, as it were, 
selected one object, and over this diffused such an 
abundance of forms, that one is astonished ; while 
only the most able philologist, by assiduous study, 
can obtain a general view thereof," &c. In sub- 
stance, the author says, that through various times 
an<i circumstances, this peculiar character is pre- 
served. Such unity, such direction or tendency, 
compels us to place the origin in a remote period, 
when an original tribe or people existed, whose in- 
genuity and judgment enabled them to excogitate 
such intricate formations of language as could not 
be eifaced by thousands of years, nor by the influ- 
ence of zones and climates. Mr. Vater has pub- 
lished a large work, entitled Mithridates, in which 
he has given an extensive comparison of all the 
Asiatick, African, and American languages, to a 
much greater extent than was done by our distin- 
guished fellow citizen, Dr. Barton. He concludes 
by expressing his desire to unravel the mysteries 
which relate to the new and old continents ; at least, 
to contribute the contents of his volume towards the 
commencement of a structure, which, out of the 
ruins of dilacerated human tribes, seeks materials 
for an union of the whole human race. 

What this original and radical language was, has 
^ery lately been made the subject of inquiry, by the 



340 



learned Mr. Matbieu, of Nancy, in France, The 
chevalier Valentin, of the order of St. Michel, re- 
newed by Louis XVIII. informs me that this gen- 
tleman has examined Mr. Winthrop's description 
of the curious characters inscribed upon the rock at 
Dighton, in Massachusetts, as published in the 
transactions of the Boston Academy of Arts and 
Sciences. He thinks them hieroglyphicks, which he 
can interpret and explain ; and ascribes them to the 
inhabitants of the ancient and Atlantick island of 
Plato. Mr. Mathieu not only pretends to give the 
sense of the inscription, but also to prove that the 
tongues spoken by the Mexicans, Peruvians, and 
other occidental people, as well as the Greek itself, 
with all its dialects and ramifications, were but 
derivatives from the language of the primitive At- 
lantides ! ! 

But what need is there of all this etymological 
research and grammatical conjecture ? The features, 
manners and dress, distinguishable in the North 
American natives of the high latitudes, prove the 
people to be of the same race with the Samoieds- 
and Tartars of Asia. And the physiognomy, man- 
ufactures and customs of the North American 
tribes of the middle and low latitudes, and of the 
South Americans, show them to be nearly akin to 
the Malay race of Australasia and Polynesia. 

All this may be considered correct as far as the 
Tartars and Malays are concerned. But there is 
another part of the American population which de- 
serves to be particularly considered. I mean the 
emigrants from Lapland, Norway, and Finland, 
who? before the tenth century, settled themselves in 



341 



Greenland, and passed over to Labrador. It is re- 
corded that these adventurers settled themselves in 
a country which they called Finland, This was 
probably a new settlement, so called in honour of 
Finland, the region whence the adventurers came. 
Or, if it was a land of Vines, the proof is the stronger 
of their southern encampment. 

Our learned regent, Mr. De Witt Clinton, who 
has outdone governour Colden, by writing the most 
full and able history of the Iroquois, or Five Na- 
tions, of Newyork, mentioned to me, in a late con- 
versation, his belief that a part of the old forts and 
other antiquities at Onondaga and the adjacent ter- 
ritory, were of Danish character. In the twinkling 
of an eye, I was penetrated by the justness of his 
remark. An additional window of light was sud- 
denly opened to me, I told him in an instant how 
I could follow, with the reverend pastor Van 
Trail, the European emigrants, during the horri- 
ble commotions of the ninth and tenth centuries, to 
Iceland. The reverend Mr. Crantz had informed 
me, in his important book, how they went to Green- 
land. I thought I could trace the people of Scan- 
dinavia to the banks of the St. Lawrence. I 
supposed my friends had seen the Peunic inscrip- 
tions made by them here and there, in the places 
where they rested. Madoc, Prince of Wales, and 
his Cambrian followers, appeared to my recollec- 
tion, among these bands of adventurers. And thus, 
the northeastern lands of North America were visit- 
ed by the hyperborean tribes from the northwest- 
ernmost climates of Europe ; and the northwestern 
clinies of North America had received inhabitants 



342 



of the same race from the northeastern regions of 
Asia. 

The Danes or Finns, (and Welshmen, for I am 
willing to include them) performing their migra- 
tions gradually to the southwest, seem to have pen- 
etrated to the country situated to the south of lake 
Ontario, and to have fortified themselves there.— 
The Tartars, or Samoieds, travelling by slow de- 
grees from Alaska to the southeast, probably found 
them there. 

In their course, these Asian colonists probably 
exterminated the Malays, who had penetrated along 
the Ohio and its streams ; or drove them to the 
caverns, abounding in saltpetre and copperas in 
Kentucky and Tennessee, where their bodies, ac- 
companied with the cloths and ornaments of their 
peculiar manufacture, have been repeatedly disin- 
terred and brought to us for examination. Having 
achieved this conquest, the Tartars and their de- 
scendants had probably a much harder task to per- 
form. This was to subdue the more ferocious and 
warlike European colonists, who had already been 
intrenched and fortified in the country, before 
them. There is evidence enough that long and 
bloody wars were waged among the tribes. In 
these, the Scandinavians or Esquimaux seem to 
have been overpowered and destroyed in Newyork. 
The survivors of the defeat and ruin retreated to 
Labrador, where they have continued secure and 
protected by barrenness and cold. I have, how- 
ever, to mention, that the minerals of Labrador 
sent me, a few days ago, by Stephen Mitchell, Esq. 
qS Sagharbor, have a remarkable correspondence 



343 



With those observed in the Faroe islands by Sir 
George Mackenzie, Mr. Allan, and others. Gyp- 
sum seems to be abundant, (in addition to zealite, 
basalt, quartz, and jaspar) and to promise an inex- 
haustible supply to the southern regions for all the 
generations to come. 

Think, what a memorable spot is our Onondaga 9 
where men of the Malay face from the southwest^ 
and of the Tartar blood from the northwest, and 
of the Gothick stock from the northeast, have 
successively contended for supremacy and rule ; 
and which may be considered as having been pos- 
sessed by each before the French, the Dutch, and 
the English visited the tract, or indeed knew any 
thing whatever about it. 

We learn from the historian Charlevoix, that the 
Eries, an indigenous nation of the Malay race, 
formerly inhabited the lands south of lake Erie, 
where the western district of Pennsylvania and the 
state of Ohio now are. And Lewis Evans, a for- 
mer resident of this city, has shown us in his map 
of the Middle Colonies, that the hunting grounds 
of the Iroquois extended over that very region. — 
The Iroquois were of the Tartar stock ; and they 
converted, as it seems, the country of the extermi- 
nated Eries, into a range for bears, beavers, bisons, 
and deer. 

The Antiquarian of America will probably find 
that the Scandinavians emigrated about the tenth 
century of the Christian era, if not earlier. They 
may be considered, not merely as having discov- 
ered this continent, but to have explored its norths 
ern climes to great extent, and to have peopled 



§14 

them, three or four hundred years at least, before 
Christopher Columbus was born. The inquirer into 
this subject will not fail to trace the swarms from the 
Great Hive of nations existing to the eastward and 
westward of the Caspian Sea 5 in a manner very differ- 
ent from that which the writers of Europe and their 
imitators have pursued, as the barbarians descended 
upon the more warm and productive countries of 
the south. He will follow the hordes journeying 
by land to the eastward, and he will trace the fear- 
less boatman venturing over sea to the westward, 
until the Tartar and the Samoied meet each other at 
the antipodes. He will find this antipodal region to 
lie south of the lakes Ontario and Erie, and thereon 
pursue the vestiges of their combats, their conflicts, 
and their untold story, to Onondaga, the great head 
quarters of the victorious Iroquois. 

No. VII. 

The following Letter was a few months since ad~ 
dressed by Dr. Samuel L. Mitch ill, of New* 
yorky to the Recording Secretary of the American 
Antiquarian Society, on the Origin and Antiqui* 
ties of the Aborigines of our country. 
Sir, 

I received, two days ago, your letter of Feb- 
ruary first, informing me that the President and 
Sub Council of the American Antiquarian Society, 
at Worcester, had appointed me a corresponding 
member. 

My opinion is, that the Antiquities of our coun- 
try were never presented to us in so interesting and 
advantageous an aspect as at present. Their num- 



S4S 

ber and their description is more attended to thai! 
heretofore. There are more good observers, and 
therefore we are enabled to form more correct con- 
clusions. At the same time, it must be remember- 
ed, that the vestiges of the Aborigines, their man- 
ners, their languages and their arts, are becoming 
rapidly more and more faint 5 and many of them 
will soon vanish altogether from sight. It there- 
fore becomes the Society, and all its members, to 
employ every moment of time, and every opportu- 
nity that can be found, to delineate them as they are, 
and to save them from oblivion. I accordingly ex- 
hort all with whom I communicate, to be industri- 
ous and persevering. 

My observation led me several years ago to the 
conclusion, that the two great continents were 
peopled by similar races of men ; and that Ameri- 
ca, as well as Asia, had its Tartars in the north, and 
its Malays in the south. If there were but histori- 
ans, we should find a striking resemblance. Ameri- 
ca has had her Scythians, her Alans, and her Kuns ; 
but there has been no historian to record their formi- 
dable migrations, and their barbarous achievements,, 
How little of past events do we know I 

Since the publication of my sentiments on this 
subject, at home, they have been published in sev- 
eral places abroad. 

Mr, E. Salverte, editor of the Bibliotheque Uni- 
verselle, has printed them at Geneva, in Switzer- 
land, with a learned and elaborate comment. 

The Monthly Magazine, of London, contains an 
epitome of the same. 

44 



U6 

In that "memoir I maintained the doctrine, that 
there were but three original varieties of the human 
race — the tawny man, the white man, and the 
black man ; a division, which I was pleased to ob- 
serve, the incomparable author of the Animal King- 
dom (Regne Animal, &c.) had adopted in France. 
The former of these seems to have occupied, in the 
earliest days, the plain watered by the Euphrates 
and the Tigris* while the white Arab, as he has 
sometimes been called, was produced in the regions 
north of the Mediterranean Sea ; and the sable 
Arab, or negro, arose to the south of that expanse 
of water. 

Of the brown, or tawny variety, are the eastern 
Asiaticks and western Americans, divisible into 
two great stocks, or genealogies. 1. Those in high 
latitudes, whom I call Tartars ; and, 2. the inhabit- 
ants of low latitudes, whom I consider as Malays* 
I am convinced that the terms, for the general pur- 
poses of reasoning* are equally applicable to the 
two great continents ; and that, with the exception 
of the negro colonies in Papua, and a few other 
places, the islanders in the Pacifick ocean are Ma- 
lays. 

The comparison of the languages, spoken by 
these colonies and tribes respectively, was begun 
by our learned fellow citizen, the late Dr. B. S» 
Barton. 

The work has been continued by the Adelangs 
and Vater, distinguished philologists of Germany, 
Their profound inquiry into the structure of lan- 
guage, and the elements of speech, embraces a 
more correct and condensed body of information, 



347 



concerning the original tongues of the two Ameri- 
cas, than was ever compiled and arranged before. 
Their Mithridates surpasses all the similar perfor- 
mances that have ever been achieved by man. 

It gives me pleasure to mention to you a more 
recent undertaking, which reflects great honour 
upon the author and his worthy associates. Peter 
S. Du Ponceau, Esq. as Corresponding Secretary 
to the Historical and Literary Committee of the 
Philosophical Society, at Philadelphia, has prepar- 
ed a Report on the languages of the American In- 
dians. He has performed the task with singular 
industry, skill and research — -showing the copious- 
ness of those tongues in words and inflections — 
their complicated or polysynthetick structure in the 
whole space between Arctick and Antarctick — and 
the essential points of difference between their 
forms, and those of the ancient and modern lan- 
guages of the other hemisphere. This subject is 
in a train of farther investigation by that learned 
gentleman and his able associates. To them there- 
fore it may be properly confided. 

Owing to my particular situation, the arts of the 
aborigines, and their ways of living, have more par- 
ticularly excited my attention. 

One of my intelligent correspondents, who has 
surveyed with his own eyes the region watered by 
the river Ohio, wrote me very lately a letter con- 
taining the following paragraph : " I have adopted 
your theory respecting the Malayans, Polynesians 
and Alleghanians. This last nation, so called by 
the Lennilenapi, or primitive stock of our hunting 
Indians, was that which inhabited the United States 



348 



before the Tartar tribes came and destroyed them, 
and erected the mounds, works, fortifications and 
temples of the western country. This historical 
fact is now proved beyond a doubt, by the tradi T 
tions of the Lennilenapi Indians, published by Mr. 
Heckewelder, in the work just issued by the Phi- 
losophical Society of Philadelphia — and your saga- 
cious ideas are confirmed. I may add, that Mr. 
Clifford, of Lexington, Kentucky, has proved an- 
other identity between the Alleghanians and Mexi- 
cans, by ascertaining that many supposed fortifica- 
tions were temples— particularly that of Circle ville, 
in Ohio, where human sacrifices were one of the 
rites. He has discovered their similarity with the 
ancient Mexican temples, described by Humboldt, 
and has examined the bones of victims in heaps, 
the shells used in sacred rites, as in India, and the 
idols of baked clay, consisting of three heads." 

This opinion of human sacrifices was fully con- 
firmed by the testimony of Mr. Manuel Liea, dur- 
ing the summer of 1818. He, on his return from 
the trading posts on the upper Missouri, informed 
his fellow citizens at St, Louis, that the Wolf tribe 
of the Pawnee Indians yet follow the custom of im- 
molating human victims. He purchased a Spanish 
prisoner, a boy about ten years old, whom they in- 
tended to offer as a sacrifice to the Great Star / 
and they did put to death, by transfixing on a sharp 
pole, as an offering to the object of their adoration, 
the child of a Paddo woman, who, being a captive 
herself, and devoted to that sanguinary and horrible 
death, had made her escape on horseback, leaving 
her new born offspring behind. 



349 



The triad, or trinity of heads, instantly brings to 
mind a similar article figured by the Indians of Asia s 
and described by Mr. Maurice in his Oriental Re- 
searches. 

I received, a short time since, directly from Mex- 
ico, several pieces of cloth, painted in the manner 
that historians have often represented. I find the 
material in not a single instance to be cotton, as has 
been usually affirmed. There is not a thread indi- 
cating the use of the spinning wheel, nor an inter- 
texture showing that the loom or the shuttle was 
employed. In strictness, therefore, there is neither 
cotton nor cloth in the manufacture. The fabricks, 
on the contrary, are uniformly composed of pound- 
ed bark, probably of the mulberry tree, and resem- 
ble the paper cloths, if I may so call them, prepared 
to this day in the Friendly and Society Islands of 
the Pacifick ocean, as nearly as one piece of linen, 
or one blanket of wool, resembles another. I de- 
rive this conclusion from a comparison of the sev- 
eral sorts of goods. They have been examined to- 
gether by several excellent judges. For at the late 
meeting of the Newyork Literary and Philosophi- 
cal Society, in February, 1819, I laid the paper 
cloths, with their respective colourings and paint- 
ings, from Mexico, Otaheite, Tongatabboo, upon 
the table for the examination of the members. All 
were satisfied that there was a most striking simili- 
tude among the several articles. Not only the fab- 
rick, but the colours and the materials of which 
they apparently consisted, as well as the probable 
manner of putting them on, seemed to me strong 
proofs of the sameness of origin in the different 



350 



tribes of a people working in the same way, and 
retaining a sameness in their arts of making a thing 
which answers the purpose of paper, of cloth, and 
of a material for writing and painting upon. 

Soon after the arrival of these rolls from New 
Spain, filled with hieroglyphick and imitative char- 
acters, I received a visit from three natives of South 
America, born at St, Bias, just beyond the Isthmus 
of Darien, oo the eastern side, between Portobello 
and Carthagena. They were of the Malay race, by 
their physiognomy, form and general appearance. 
Their dark brown skins, their thin beards, the long, 
black, straight hair of their heads, their small hands 
and feet, and their delicate frame of body, all con- 
curred to mark their near resemblance to the Aus- 
tralasians ; while the want of high cheek bones, and 
of little eyes, placed wide apart, distinguished them 
sufficiently from the Tartars. 

Other similitudes exist. The history of M. de 
la Salle's last expedition and discoveries in North 
America, is contained in the second volume of the 
Collections of the Newyork Historical Society, p. 
306. In that narrative is the following statement : 
" Thus, in pursuing our journey, sometimes in the 
plains, and sometimes across the torrents, we ar- 
rived in the midst of a very extraordinary nation, 
called the Biscatonges, to whom we gave the name 
of c weepers,' in regard that upon the first approach 
of strangers, all these people, as well men as women, 
usually fall a weeping bitterly, &c. That which 
is yet more remarkable, and perhaps very reasona- 
ble in that custom, is, that they weep much more at 
the birth of their children than at their death, be* 



251 



cause the latter is esteemed only by them, as it 
were, a journey or voyage, from whenGe they may 
return after the expiration of a certain time ; but 
they look upon their nativity as an inlet into an 
ocean of dangers and misfortunes." 

I beg you to compare this with a passage in the 
Terpsichore of Herodotus, chapter four, where, in 
describing the Thracians, he observes, " that the 
Trausi have a general uniformity with the rest of 
the Thracians, except what relates to the birth of 
their children, and the burial of their dead. On 
the birth of a child, he is placed in the midst of a 
circle of his relations, who lament aloud the evils, 
which, as a human being, he must necessarily un- 
dergo ; all of which they particularly enumerate." 
(Beloe's translation.) 

There is an opinion among the Seneca nation of 
the Iroquois confederacy, living at this day in the 
region south of lake Ontario, that eclipses of the 
sun and moon are caused by a Manitau, or bad 
Spirit, who mischievously intercepts the light in- 
tended to be shed upon the earth and its inhabit- 
ants. Upon such occasions, the greatest solicitude 
exists. All the individuals of the tribe feel a strong 
desire to drive away the demon, and to remove 
thereby the impediment to the transmission of lu* 
minous rays. For this purpose, they go forth, and, 
by crying, shouting, drumming, and the firing of 
guns, endeavour to frighten him. They never fail 
in their object ; for by courage and perseverance 
they infallibly drive him off. His retreat is sue* 
ceeded by a return of the obstructed light. 



352 



Something of the same kind is practised among 
the Chippeways, at this time, when an eclipse hap- 
pens. The belief among them is, that there is a 
battle between the sun and moon, which intercepts 
the light. Their great object, therefore, is to stop 
the fighting, and to separate the combatants. They 
think these ends can be accomplished by withdraw- 
ing the attention of the contending parties from each 
other, and diverting it to the Chippeways them- 
selves. They accordingly fill the air with noise 
and outcry. Such sounds are sure to attract the 
attention of the warring powers. Their philoso- 
phers have the satisfaction of knowing that the strife 
never lasted long after their clamour and noisy ope- 
rations had begun. Being thus induced to be peace- 
ful, the sun and moon separate, and light is restored 
to the Chippeways 

Now it is reported, on the authority of one of the 
Jesuit fathers of the French mission to India, that a 
certain tribe or people, Whom he visited there, as- 
cribed eclipses to the presence of a great dragon. — i 
This creature, by the interposition of his huge bodyy 
obstructed the passage of the light to our world.— 
They were persuaded they could drive him away 
by all the terrifying sounds they could produce. 
These were always successful. The dragon retir- 
ed in alarm, and the eclipse immediately terminated. 

The manner of depositing the bodies of distin- 
guished persons after death, is remarkable. Among 
the tribes inhabiting the banks of the Columbia riv- 
er, and in some of those which live near the waters 
of the Missouri, the dead body of a great man M 



353 

neither consumed by fire, nor buried in die earth j 
but it is placed in his canoe, with his articles of 
dress, ornament, war and hunting, and suspended 
in the canoe, between two trees* to putrefy in the 
open air. 

The custom of exposing bodies to decomposition 
above ground in the morais, or places of deposit for 
the dead, among the Polynesians, will immediately 
occur to every reader of the voyages made within 
the last half century, through the Pacifick ocean, 
for the purposes of discovery, 

The practice of cannibalism exists in full force in 
the Tegee islands. A particular and faithful ac- 
count of it is contained in the 14th volume of the 
Medical Repository, chapters 209 — 215* 

The history of the five Indian nations dependent 
upon the government of Newyork, by Dr. Golden^ 
pp. 185 — 6, shows that the ferocious and vindictive 
spirit of the conqueror led him occasionally to feast 
upon his captive. The Cttawas then made a soup 
of the flesh of an Iroquois prisoner. The like has 
been repeatedly done since, on select occasions, by 
the other tribes* Governour Cass, of Michigan, a 
few weeks ago, told me, that among the Miamis 
there was a standing committee, consisting of seven 
warriours, whose business it was to perform the 
maneating required by publick authority. The 
last of their cannibal feasts was on the body of a 
White man, of Kentucky, about thirtyfive years ago* 
The appointment of the committee to eat human 
flesh, has, since that time, gradually become obso- 
lete ; but the oldest and last member of this canni- 
45 



354 



bat society is well remembered, and died only a few? 
years ago.* 

The Antiquities of North America, or rather the 
Fredonian section of it, have become deservedly 
the objects of particular and inquisitive research. 

It was my intention to have terminated this com- 
munication here ; but another subject occurs to me. 
There is a class of Antiquities which present them- 
selves on digging from thirty to fifty feet below the 
present surface of the ground. They occur in the 
form of fire brands, split wood, ashes, coals, and 
occasionally of tools and utensils, buried to those 
depths by the alluvion, and have been observed, as 
I am informed, in Rhodeisland, Nevvjersey, Mary- 
land, Northcarolina, and doubtless in other places. 
I have heard of some in Ohio. I wish the mem- 
bers of the Society would exert themselves with all 
possible diligence to ascertain and collect the facts 
of this description. They will be exceedingly curi- 
ous both for the geologist and the historian. After 
such facts shall have been collected and methodiz- 
ed, we may perhaps draw some satisfactory concluv 
sions. Light may possibly be shed upon the re- 
mote Pelasgians, and upon the traditionary Man- 
tides ; and, if the rays should not be bright enough 
to exhibit them in all their distinctness, there will 

* A very circumstantial description of a cannibal feast, where a soup 
was made from the body of an Englishman, at Michillimakinack, about 
the year 1760, is given by Alexander Henry, Esq. in his book of travels 
through Canada and the Indian territories. It is there stated that man- 
eating was then, and always had been, practised among the Indian na- 
tions on returning from war, or on overcoming their enemies, for the pur- 
pose of giving them courage to attack, and resolution to die. (14 MedL 
Repos. pp. 261— 2G2.) 



/ 



355 



be sufficient to show us a great deal more than wc 
have learned, as yet, concerning the generations of 
men who have gone before us, as inhabitants of the 
regions of the globe, now held, though with strange 
additions and alterations, by the present race. 

I present this letter to the American Antiquarian 
Society, as a proof of my respect for the Institution, 
and of my zeal to promote its laudable objects.— T 
And I beg you will accept for yourself the assur« 
$nce of my particular regard. 

Samuel L. MitchilLo 



Extract of a Letter from Jo h n H. Fa r n h a m, Esq* 
a Member of the American Antiquarian Society \ 
describing the Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky* 
IN passing from Barren to Warren county, I 
visited an immense Cave, which, by way of distin- 
guishing it from numerous others in this part o£ 
the country, which is wholly limestone, and very- 
hollow, is called the Mammoth Cave, one of the 
greatest curiosities the country affords. It is owned 
by some gentlemen of Lexington with whom I am 
acquainted, who manufacture from the earth found 
in it, a vast quantity of saltpetre. By a steep preci- 
pice you descend to its mouth, which seems like 
some frightful chasm in nature, whose hideous 
yawn allures the adventurer to its interiour, only to 
bury him in eternal darkness. The entrance to the 
Infernal abodes of ancient mythology is most fprcL* 



bly recalled to your mind. Here, you say, Virgil 
might have found a hell formed to his mind. In 
advancing two or three hundred yards, the incum- 
bent rocks, which, at first, formed a lofty and tre- 
mendous arch over your head, gradually converge 
till you come to a low and narrow entrance, where 
for several yards it is necessary to stoop. The en- 
trance, however, is not so low but that oxen are ad- 
mitted with facility. Here a black and dreary per- 
spective of nearly a quarter of a mile is presented , 
to the eye. At the end of which, you see by dim 
torches, twenty or thirty blacks engaged in the la- 
bours of the Cave, which has no small effect in 
strengthening any illusion that may have occupied 
your mind. A strong current of cold air at the en- 
trance imparts a chill to the feelings, that seems to 
prepare you to enter this tomb of nature. Here 
our guide, who was the head workman of the Cave } 
stopped to furnish us with torches^ which, with the 
utmost difficulty, we preserved from being extin- 
guished by the violent current that is perpetually 
rushing to the warm atmosphere without. The 
experience of our guide, however, soon removed 
all difficulties, and introduced us, gazing with ad- 
miration and astonishment at the gloomy sublimi- 
ties of this subterraneous abode. 

After passing the entrance, the Cave gradually 
opens till you have a wall of sixty or seventy feet 
high, with a width of from one to three or four feet* 
There is a pretty good turnpike road formed for 
three fourths of a mile in the Cave, on which the 
oxen cart the earth used in the manufactory of salt, 
petre, to convenient places. 



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